


Spinner's Wife

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Spinner's Helper 'verse [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, F/M, Fluff, Rumbelle is Hope, Spinner!Rumple, adorable relationship stuff, also a wedding and what semblance of a honeymoon two dirt poor people can manage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-23 19:42:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8340226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: A fluff-filled continuation of Spinner’s Helper for Rumbelle is Hope. Belle and Rumpelstiltskin work on having a wedding and whatever semblance of a honeymoon they can manage, while life decides to throw a surprise at them





	1. Chapter 1

Baelfire had been ecstatic when they told him of their decision to marry. He wanted to know when, and where, and caused a good deal of awkwardness when he asked whether he should call Belle ‘mum.’  
“We haven’t yet decided,” was the answer to his first pair of questions, and a surprised silence had been their response to the last. They’d put him off with a promise of a later discussion and avoided talking about it between themselves for the rest of the evening.

They waited to tell her father until Rumpel had saved enough coins to buy a chicken on market day. She’d assured him that it wasn’t necessary - she and her father had next to nothing, themselves, now - but Rumpel wanted to make as nice an impression as he could.

He made meat pies with root vegetables, peas, and the best parts of the chicken. The rest had gone into a pot for soup to last them the rest of the week. He had overspent a little to purchase herbs, but at least the leftovers could be easily utilized.

Belle’s father was suspicious from the moment she told him they’d an invitation to the spinner’s home for supper. He had done his best to decline, but she would have none of it. They walked down the path just before dark, Belle carrying a lantern to light their way home and Maurice gruff and puffed up behind her.

Bae answered the door, doing an exemplary job of keeping the secret, though he looked as though he might burst with it. Rumpel was visibly nervous when they stepped inside.

Supper was ready, and Rumpel fussed her away from helping to put it on the small table. Her father begrudgingly admitted that the pies were tasty, after she’d flattered their supper’s cook, and the entire meal felt stilted until Rumpel took the dishes to set them aside and sent Bae off to bed. Then it grew downright uncomfortable. 

The three of them sat at the table, her father shifting narrow looks between herself and Rumpel as though he dared them to come out with whatever it was they’d dragged him along for.

“Sir Maur-” Rumpel began.

Belle cut him off, telling him quietly, “Don’t call him Sir.”

“No, he may call me ‘Sir,’” Maurice said, regarding the spinner cooly.

She gave her father an exasperated look. “We’re to be married, Papa,” she said before Rumpel could be made to feel badly about anything.

Apparently her father _hadn’t_ suspected what he’d been called over to supper for. His eyes widened until she thought they might pop from the sockets. _“Married?”_

“Sometime in the spring,” Rumpel said. Belle reached across the table’s corner for his hand to encourage his bravery. “We’ve not discussed timing farther than that, but spring seems ideal.”

 _“Married?”_ her father squawked again. “I don’t recall being consulted!”

“Papa, things have changed.”

“They’ve not changed _that_ much!”

 _“Papa,”_ Belle said, warning in her voice. “This is a good thing. Something to celebrate.”

Rumpel looked a bit cowed by her father’s reaction. She squeezed his hand, though, and he looked up at her. “I lo- I love Belle,” he said, his attention on her rather than on her father. “We can make a home here.”

She felt something very like sunlight well up inside, and she smiled as though it beamed from her. “And I love Rumpel. Between the two of us, we’ll be able to take care of _all_ of us, as well.”

“If this is what you want, then so be it,” Maurice said, but she could tell that it wasn’t the end of his protest. He simply wouldn’t say what he had on his mind in front of their host.

Belle lit her lantern from the fire and kissed Rumpelstiltskin goodnight to the tune of Bae cooing, “Oooh!” from his bed. His papa turned a half dozen shades of pink and she laughed, wishing both of them sweet dreams before following her father out.

Maurice started in the moment the door to their own house had closed behind them. “You were to marry a _nobleman,_ Belle!”

“And there are noblemen knocking at our door all hours of the day,” she said a bit waspishly.

“I simply don’t believe you could settle for a- a-”

“A spinner?” she supplied, daring him to disparage the vocation she’d ended up in, herself. “The same as I, now, Papa. And it is by no means settling. You saw for yourself how kind he is. He has next to nothing, and he sacrificed to make such a meal for us. I’ve witnessed him giving to beggars only a hair’s breadth from his own situation.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s a good match,” Maurice went on, and she could see him building up a sulk. “He has a child. You’ll be saddled with a step-son. Your children would be heirs to nothing.”

Belle laughed. “‘Saddled’? He’s the loveliest little boy. I would be proud to call him my _son_. And for that matter, heirs… they don’t matter here. At least not as much as you’re accustomed to. No one here has land or riches to bequeath, and we don’t have any more than most of the people in this village. That’s a non-argument, and you know it.”

“He’s so much older than you, my dear…” her father went on weakly.

“There were noblemen you considered giving my hand to at least as old as he.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, sitting down in his chair by the fire. Her father never had appreciated it when she used his own actions as a point.

“I’m going to bed,” Belle told him, taking her cloak with her to add to the top of her blankets. “I’ll be out early in the morning, but I’ll leave your breakfast on the hearth to keep warm.”

“Good night,” her father muttered, and she left him to work his way around to accepting her decision.

~o~o~o~

Weeks passed and so did midwinter. The wedding would wait for spring, they decided, but the months between did nothing to stop them from daydreaming aloud about it. Rumpel had worried over Belle’s father’s reaction to the news, but after the initial upset, the man had been nothing less than congenial toward Bae and himself.

Every kiss from Belle was a small shock to his heart. She blessed him with one when she arrived in the mornings and before she left each evening, and always there were occasional kisses between. On this particular morning, however, she hurried past him when he met her at the door, and there was not a kiss to be had. 

Belle gave him a tense, “Good morning,” before leaving her basket on the table and her cloak over the chair, and she went right to the fireside to warm her hands. 

Had he done something wrong? He went over the previous day in his mind as he closed the door and approached her, making his staff as quiet against the floor as he could. 

“Belle?” he asked, reaching out to touch the back of her arm. She turned to look at him, her eyes glistening, and his heart sank right into his boots.

She looked past him, to where Bae sat on his bed with paper and a piece of coal. “Could you sent Bae over to Morraine’s to play for a while?”

Rumpel nodded, and he went to get his son ready to go out in the cold. The sentiment of ‘we need to talk’ was evident even without Belle giving words to it. By the time he had Bae in boots and cloak, his stomach wasn’t sure whether it intended to keep the bit of oats he’d given it for breakfast or not.

He stood in the doorway until Bae made it into the house across the way, exchanging a wave with him before both doors were shut against the wind. Belle still stood near the hearth, her hands closed into small fists and held up near her mouth.

“I’m late,” she said as he stepped near again.

He frowned. “You arrived the same time you always have…”

“No, Rumpel.” Belle sighed, dropping her hands and turning to him again. “My bleeding. It’s late.”

“Your- your-” He blanched, and Belle grabbed his arm to steer him back toward a chair before he could sit himself down on the floor. “It’s late?”

“By a good month and a half,” she said quietly.

He counted backward. That meant… “The night of the storm?”

She nodded, stepping nearer him. They’d been more or less chaste since that night, thinking to be safe. Neither had realized that it was already too late for such considerations. 

She pinched at her lower lip with her front teeth, and when she let go, it had been worried red. “Rumpel… We can’t wait until spring.”

“Of course,” he agreed with a nod. He knew what it meant. If they didn’t marry soon, she would begin showing and there would begin talk of the sort that would make her life very difficult. “We’ll begin making arrangements right away.”

Belle smiled down at him, sighing in relief. She reached out, sliding her hand along the side of his neck and into his hair, playing with the ends between her fingertips. Rumpelstiltskin slipped a tentative arm around her waist and she stepped between his knees, placing herself in his lap.

“So, you- you aren’t angry?” he asked carefully.

“Angry?” Her brow drew in concern. “Why would I be angry?”

“I wasn’t sure if you- it-” He shrugged a bit, ducking his head. His unoccupied hand moved to hover near her abdomen. “Whether you wanted it.”

“I want it,” Belle said firmly, taking his hand and holding it to her body. She nudged her head against his until she could meet his lips, brushing a kiss across them. “More than anything, I want it.”


	2. Chapter 2

Their wedding plans had suddenly moved from a vague idea of months to as few days as possible. Still, they had things to see to first. Though the village seemed to have the opinion that they could take or leave Rumpelstiltskin, they had very quickly come to adore Belle. It was an adoration that would supply flowers for the wedding and food for the modest party afterward, not to mention guests to participate in the celebration. 

Morraine’s mother, Magda, took over as many of the arrangements as she could, and Belle was glad of it. She hadn’t the first idea where to begin. Magda had taken part in putting together village weddings for a fair decade, and she could do so handily. Rumpel’s neighbor across the way had begun visiting in the evenings, just before Belle always stopped to go home, and they would talk a little more about it. And each evening, Belle brought him into the discussions and decisions. He hadn’t expected it, but he couldn’t deny how lovely it was to have his opinion sought.

It was just apt that he ended up with a pair of winter lambs born to one of the older ewes. Surprise little ones seemed to be a recurring theme in his life. It was unusual, to say the least, and he’d missed it as a result of that paired with the herd’s heavy wool this time of year. The lambs were too small to remain in the paddock in such bitter cold. He brought them inside and prepared a bed for them near the hearth to keep them warm. Their mother, he fetched in every four hours day and night so that the frail wee things could nurse.

The lambs were an excellent distraction. Belle’s attention strayed to them during meal times and the moments they took a break from working, keeping her curiosity from uncovering a secret that Rumpel had been attempting to keep well hidden.

For weeks before Belle’s surprise came to light, he had been separating out the very best wool and hiding it away to weave fabric enough to make a dress. Belle had mentioned that she didn’t need a new one, that all she needed was him, and to be married _to_ him. He thought that she should have something nice, though, for her wedding day, and he intended to make certain that she did.

He was glad that he’d been working on it already. With so few days left, he might not have been able to finish it in time otherwise. He couldn’t, of course, make a dress such as she would have had in her castle - and nothing near the finery she deserved - but he could make something beautiful nonetheless.

Rather than using cards on the wool, he took it and combed it to make top. It was smoother and held a bit of luster, compared to his usual roving, and it spun up like a dream. Blue dye was expensive for him to make, and it was only rarely that he managed blue yarn to sell in the market. Over the last weeks, however, he had scraped together the coin to make a batch big enough for a full garment’s worth of yarn.

Between making sure the lambs were fed and doing the extra spinning during the night, he had been exhausting himself. On one particular morning, he’d risen hours early to work at spinning on the good wheel - the one that Belle still learned on. He lost track of time, and before he knew it, the door to his hovel was squeaking open.

“No, no, no! Wait a moment!” Rumpelstiltskin gasped, waving his hands at her. “Turn around! Close your eyes!” 

Belle gave him a confused look, but she did as he asked, closing her eyes and turning to face the door so quickly that she nearly tripped over her own feet. “What are you doing?”

He rushed around as well as he could, covering things up and putting things away. “All right,” he said, tucking a skein of yarn beneath the blanket on his bed. “You can look.”

She turned, her lips pressed together in amusement, and glanced around with curiosity. She could find nothing that looked out of place, though, and he feigned innocence as best he could. 

“Good morning,” she greeted belatedly, and he could feel the mirth in her kiss when she rose onto her tiptoes for it.

The yarn dyed up a _such_ a lovely blue. He watched the pot carefully, checking often, and left it only long enough to take on a medium shade that he knew would bring out Belle’s eyes. He was certain that it was the prettiest color he’d ever managed, and proud that it would be her wedding dress.

Belle didn’t say anything about the oddity of his behavior until he began the process of weaving. He hadn’t worked at the loom at all in more than a year. It took too much out of him now, hurt his lame ankle too badly. They had to be in dire straits for a garment before he would drag the loom out of its corner and torture himself for a few yards of fabric. He could only stand to work at it for a handful of minutes at a time, and he pushed himself hard, alternating a few minutes of work with a few minutes of rest for hours on end to get the fabric made. It was the worsening of his limp that Belle noticed.

She fussed over him, trying to get him to put his foot up, asking if he might have any salve to soothe the pain. He had none that would reach so deep. Belle petted him, though, and worried over him, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with that sort of love.

It was an immense relief to have the weaving finished. The rest was quicker work, and far less painful. By the time he had the pieces cut for her dress and sat to sew, his leg had settled back to its usual ache.

Weariness and his all-present bouts of worry needled at him as the day grew nearer, and it was as he stitched around the holes for the laces in Belle’s dress in the darkest hours of one morning that the thought preyed on him.

“Are you certain that you wish to marry me? _Me?”_ he asked quietly when Belle arrived only a few hours later.

She blinked at him, surprised by the question she was met with at the door. Before she spoke, she reached up to catch a hand at the back of his neck, this morning pulling him down for her kiss. 

“Whatever are you talking about?” she asked, setting down her basket. She gave him a closer look as he followed her over to the fire. “Rumpel, have you slept?”

“I’ve… been busy.” He glanced away, toward the plain woolen shawl that wrapped around her finished dress to hide it.

Belle smiled fondly at him. “I can imagine. What makes you ask such a thing?”

His gaze shifted back to her - to her belly, still soft and flat. She reached for the hand not on his walking stick, drawing it close to hold it where he looked. He couldn’t help stroking there, where their child lived and grew. It made an ache bloom around his heart.

“You know,” she said, squeezing her hand around his. “I proposed marriage before the baby.”

Rumpel looked up to meet her eyes. He nodded, remembering. “I know.”

“I very much want to marry you. I want to marry you for _you,_ not because I feel compelled to. I had quite enough of that in my life before.” She lifted a hand to cup at his cheek. “And I’m not marrying you for your sheep, either.”

Her teasing drew a smile from him. “I’m sorry.”

Belle shook her head. She knew enough of _his_ life before to understand where his fear grew from. “Silly man,” she whispered, guiding him away from the fire and the spinning wheels and over to his bed. “Come here.”

He glanced back at Bae, where his son sat near the hearth and the lambs, playing with his yarn dolls and trying to work out how to make one on his own.

“He’s all right there,” Belle said. She grinned, and he felt his face warm as she interpreted what had crossed his mind. “I only want to get my arms around you. For now.”


	3. Chapter 3

A week before the wedding, Belle’s father set in demanding that a cleric perform the ritual. The more firmly he attempted to demand, the more staunchly she refused. Rumpel was willing to go whichever way she decided, but she knew that he would be more comfortable with someone from the village. She was none too fond of the clerics, anyway.

The village priestess was from the traditions that Rumpel had grown up with, and Belle was more than happy to have the elder woman officiate. It was particularly nice that the priestess had a reputation of not asking payment as long as she got to take home her pick of food from a celebration. 

There was a list of things to see to, and they made the time seem to go more quickly. Belle paid the marriage fine to the Duke from the coins she’d been saving for a wheel of her own. It left a bitter taste in her mouth to give the man anything after the way he had gone after her father. She and Rumpel were providing what food they could without starving themselves out the rest of the winter; the rest Magda was making certain would be brought around as potluck. Magda intended on putting together the flowers herself on the morning of the wedding. Belle had taken her nice dress from the trunk beside her bed and hung it up over a pot of water by the fire so that the wrinkles would fall out. Though it wasn’t what she’d thought to be married in, she had been honest in what she told Rumpel - the dress didn’t matter. The marriage was what she wanted.

Everything was suddenly arranged, and they had only a day and a night to wait. She went to Rumpel’s home as always, though she expected they would get little accomplished, and she went inside cautiously. He’d been behaving so secretively of late, and while her curiosity burned, she had resolved not to pry and ruin whatever it was he worked so diligently at.

Rumpel and Bae waited for her when she opened the door, the two of them standing at the near end of the table. Both wore smiles. Bae’s was bright and broad and excited. His father’s was nervous, tugging lopsidedly at one corner of his mouth.

“What is this?” she asked, setting her basket on the bed, as they’d blocked its usual landing place.

Rumpel gave his son’s shoulder a gentle nudge. He limped to one side and Bae hopped to the other, revealing something on the table behind them. She lay her cloak over the bed as she stepped forward to look, and her heart skipped a beat.

“Oh, Rumpel…” she breathed, reaching out with both hands to stroke the dress. Her smile trembled when she looked up at him, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears. “Oh, it’s _beautiful.”_

Belle turned to him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him soundly. She let him go only to take his face between her hands, kissing his cheeks until he blushed and stammered.

“It- it’s only a d- dress,” he managed between kisses. He found himself holding onto the sides of her bodice as if it kept him upright.

“No,” she said, still teary. _“This_ dress is far more than only a dress.” Leaving one hand at his cheek, she reached with the other to stroke the fabric again. “I couldn’t imagine anything lovelier for my wedding.”

“I have something more,” Rumpel told her, letting go of her so that he could lean to take something from the chair at the table that had become hers. 

“More?” Belle squeaked, wiping at her cheeks.

Though Rumpelstiltskin had made certain that the cut of the fabric and the shape would be flattering once it was on, other than its color, the dress was quite plain. And with long sleeves and a modest neck, it would be warm, though not truly warm enough for the midst of winter.

Early the previous spring, he’d had a yearling lamb that wiggled its way out of the paddock and crossed paths with a wolf. As terrible as losing the lamb had been in so many ways, a piece of the shearling he’d saved from it had helped Bae through a summer cold during which nothing else seemed to keep him warm enough. The shearling held some luck or other, Rumpel had decided, and he’d kept it wrapped up in a piece of cloth and tucked into the rafters. Now a piece of it would keep Belle warm on their wedding day.

He’d carefully cut and lined the piece of shearling with the same blue fabric, sewing a fastening inside at the neck so that it remained hidden. It was enough to drape over her shoulders, and it could be snugged higher around her neck as the day grew colder, if needed. He laid it out on the table next to her dress and looked to her for approval.

Belle shook her head as she petted the short wool and tears spilled over again. She reached for Rumpel’s hand, squeezing it. “I love you,” she told him when she thought she could manage it without her voice breaking.

The way his smile brightened as he said,“I love you, Belle,” made her heart thump harder.

“Here,” she said, reaching into the top of her bodice. “I have something for you, too. It isn’t nearly as big, but…”

They hadn’t yet gotten to knitting or weaving lessons with her spinnings, but thanks to a string of governesses, she did have talent at needlepoint. She took a piece of cloth from her bosom and unfolded it before she held it out to him. It was a sizable square of fine linen cut from one of the good petticoats she’d been able to take with her when she was driven from her home. Now it was a handkerchief with a carefully rolled hem, embroidered roses pouring from one corner.

Rumpel held the handkerchief draped over one hand, the other hovering over her needlework as though he were afraid his fingers would soil it. “It’s beautiful, Belle,” he whispered. “It’s too good for- for-”

“Don’t you finish that sentence,” she said, sighing though she smiled up at him. “You deserve far more.”

The day was spent with their stools set far too close for spinning. They spoke of the wedding and the baby, of the four of them being a family. Bae chattered about the party and the food.

Belle left before sunset, giving Rumple a half dozen kisses before she made it out the door. She bade him to get a full night’s sleep, following the direction with a grin of a sort that made his ears warm.

He gave Bae a bath in front of the hearth, standing his son before the fire to dry and warm before being put to bed, then had his own bath from the basin of water. However else the two of them looked the next day, they would be clean.

Before retiring, himself, he took his festival clothes down from the cupboard. They were by no means new, and they needed a small amount of mending here and there, not to mention being a tad too big. Things had been particularly meager the last couple of years. They were far nicer than his everyday, though. As for Bae, he checked over the boy’s trousers for rips and set them out with a new tunic made from the pieces left over after cutting the pattern for Belle’s dress. The little tunic was a surprise in itself for his son. Bae deserved to feel celebrated at the wedding, as well.

Sleep did wonders for his nerves and worries. Magda was over early with the wreath of flowers meant for his head, catching him half dressed and Bae without his shoes. When the two of them at last set foot on the little path between their door and the road, making their way toward their neighbor with his son’s hand in his, it seemed they were nearly the last to turn up. He left Bae showing his new tunic to Morraine and went to stand in front of the village priestess, glad for the small, squat woman’s patience when it took a fair few minutes for Belle to appear. Her father stood right up front, not a few feet from him. Rumpel couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw the man attempt a smile for him.

Belle stepped out of Magda’s house. The moment he saw her walking toward him, his nerves settled. Her dark hair glinted auburn in the bright winter sun, the crown of pink daphnes and speckled purple snow roses on her head seeming to glow in a way he was certain his own didn’t. Belle’s eyes shone blue as cornflowers, and he thought his heart might well burst right through his ribcage. She met him in front of the priestess, reaching out for him when she was near enough, and he gave her his hand.

“Let’s get this started, shall we?” the priestess prompted, her patience with the eyes they made at one another running thin. She pulled a red cord from inside her cloak and tapped the hands they held to bring them higher.

Belle laughed softly, lifting her hand and Rumple’s with it before he snapped out of his stare. 

The priestess wrapped the cord around their hands, officially making them one in the eye of the land, and nodded with satisfaction when she was done. “Repeat after me,” she told them, and gave them the words she’d given countless pairs of people.

“I belong to myself. You cannot possess me. But while you and I wish it, I offer you all that is mine,” Rumpel said, having to swallow before he could go on. “I am free. You cannot command me. But I shall be your helpmeet in every way I am able. Honey will taste the sweeter from my fingers, and touch will be the warmer from my hand. I give you my heart, that it may be met with your own”

Belle felt tears threaten as soon as he began repeating the vow, and they overflowed not long after. He didn’t seem to notice when his own joined them. 

“I belong to myself,” she echoed, needing only the occasional help from the priestess with the unfamiliar words. “You cannot possess me. But while you and I wish it, I offer you all that is mine. I am free. You cannot command me. But I shall be your helpmeet in every way I am able. Honeycomb will taste the sweeter from my-” 

A quiet sob escaped her, and her smile widened. When Rumpel’s unbound hand came up to cradle her cheek, she rested her own over it. “-from my fingers, and touch will be the warmer from my hand. I give you my heart, that it may be met with your own.”

“There we go,” the priestess said with another firm nod. “You’re husband and wife. Seal it with a kiss and make your jump. I assume you’ve a besom.” She began craning her neck, looking in the direction of the table that held the food.

Belle laughed and rose onto her toes to kiss her husband, feeling happier than she thought she’d ever been in her life. 

Magda leaned to place the besom before them. They kept a hold on one another’s hand as Belle hopped over it and Rumpel stepped quickly with the help of his wife and staff, leaving the past behind and taking themselves into the future together.


	4. Chapter 4

Someone set a bonfire roaring, and the celebration centered mainly around it out of need for warmth. Whether they were there only out of friendship with Belle or not, the villagers seemed happy to enjoy the occasion with them.

As the day went on, Rumpelstiltskin had a feeling that the celebration had stopped being about the wedding and had turned into merriment for its own sake. People needed something to enjoy during the harshness of winter - he wouldn’t begrudge them that - but it made him ready to retreat back into the closeness of home. 

Belle did the greater part of socializing while he dragged a short bench over within comfort’s range of the bonfire and sat. She returned to perch next to him often, giving him kisses that made the back of his neck prickle with heat and leaving him with food or drink.

He watched her as she finished a conversation with one of the women who had become an almost weekly customer at their market stall over the months since Belle has joined him there. She smiled, but her smile faded a little as the woman turned to speak to someone else. Belle looked nearly as weary of the party as he felt.

Rumpel tilted his head, and her smile returned. She shrugged a little, pulling her shearling closer around her shoulders, and raised her eyebrows. He sent a look across the road to home. When he looked back to her, she nodded.

He took his staff from where it leaned next to him and rose. Bae played some running game with Morraine and a few other children, and Rumpel beckoned him over when he caught his eye.

“We’re just about to go inside. Will you be all right staying with Morraine?” he asked Bae as they were getting ready to leave the celebration.

Bae nodded quickly. “I’ll be all right, Papa.”

He tugged his son’s cloak more closely around his neck. “Tonight _and_ tomorrow night? You’re certain?”

“Yes, Papa.” Bae smiled. “You need together time with Belle.”

Rumpel gave his son a flustered look, having no idea what to say.

“That’s what Morraine’s mum said. After a wedding, there’s together time.”

“Well, she’s- that’s-” Rumpel huffed a laugh. He nodded and gathered Baelfire close. “I’ll see you morning after next. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.” Bae wrapped his arms around his Papa’s neck, holding tight. It took a little while before his father let him go. 

He ran to Belle, throwing his arms around her waist. She petted his hair before putting her arms around his shoulders and squeezing him to her. It was nice, getting to hug her, and she always, _always_ hugged him back.

Belle smiled up at Rumpel. She had a son. A sweet, loving son, and she dared anyone to say different.

She let Magda know that they were stepping away from the celebration. Going over to meet Rumpel nearer the bonfire again, she slipped her arm through his and tucked herself close against his side. They walked back to the little house that waited for them, nose and cheeks and fingers stinging with cold by the time they got themselves inside.

The bonfire had kept them warm enough, but the inside of their home was positively toasty in comparison. It gave her a thrill inside to be able to call it _her_ home as well, now. She’d long looked forward to being a part of it - a part of their family, and of the gentle chaos that it could be.

“Can we… down in front of the hearth again?” Belle asked almost shyly.

Rumpel smiled, his stomach turning a flip. “Anywhere you want.”

“Careful. I may take you up on that,” she said. There was no teasing in her voice. It sounded very like a promise.

He ducked his head, the idea of it sending a wave of warmth down through his belly. “I wouldn’t argue.”

She unfastened the clasp on her shearling and laid it on the bed, sitting down on the edge long enough to take off her shoes while he brought the sheepskins down from the rafters and arranged them on the floor in front of the fire. When she looked up at him, he stood there seeming a bit lost. She took the pillows from his bed - _their_ bed, she corrected her thought with a smile to herself - and brought them over to drop on top of their pallet.

Somehow his awkwardness gave her more courage. “We’ve done this before,” she reminded him with a grin.

“Yes, but… that was a bit unplanned.”

“Unplanned from your perspective, perhaps.”

He looked up at her in surprise, and she couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her. 

Belle reached up to lift the flower wreath from his hair, smiling as strands clung to the leaves. Following her example, he took the wreath from her own head.

“I want to save these,” she said, turning to set them side by side on the table. She would find out how to dry them, and she would put them somewhere safe.

“Keepsakes,” Rumpel agreed. Perhaps, someday, they could put them somewhere to be seen. 

“Here, help me?” she asked, turning to present him with her dress’ laces. 

Belle held the front of her dress so that it didn’t fall to the floor when he loosened the ribbon that held the back together. She pulled her arms free and stepped out carefully, folding it and placing it on the bed, as well. Turning, she stood there before her husband in her shift and stockings. The desire in his eyes made her head spin a little.

She helped him to pull his tunic off over his head and laid it next to her dress, then went immediately for the strings of his trousers. His hands flexed with the need to touch her. He at last settled them at her waist, his fingers making short, back and forth strokes against her sides. The gesture somehow seemed to make her move with more haste, and suddenly she was pushing his trousers down over his hips, taking his smalls down with them.

Belle knelt down on the soft sheepskins, recognizing the problem of his boots before she encountered it in an awkward display while getting him bare from the waist down. She found him looking almost worshipfully at her when she glanced up. Once he’d pushed his boots off and they worked him out of his trousers together, she reached up for his hand to draw him down with her.

“You can help me with these, too,” she said, pulling the hem of her shift above her knees as she sat down. His hands needed something to do.

Rumpel untied her garters, slipping them away. He cupped his hands around one of her legs and rolled her stocking down until it would go no farther, then pulled it off her foot before doing the same with the other. She squirmed and reached beneath her shift to catch the waist of her underthings, pulling them down and dropping them aside with her stockings with a grin.

“What do you want to do?” she asked.

He played with one of her garters, running the bit of ruffled eyelet and ribbon through his fingers. It took him a moment to murmur, “I want to touch you…”

Belle cradled his face in her hands, tilting it up so that he would meet her eyes. “You can touch me all you like. I _want_ you to touch me.”

She could see precisely the effect that her words had on him, sitting stark naked in front of her as he did. He rested his hands on her knees, moving them slowly - _so_ slowly, too slowly - upward. Her toes curled in anticipation when he reached her thighs. He hesitated, looking up at her face as if he needed yet more permission. Belle wrapped her fingers around one of his wrists, encouraging and directing him. 

Rumpelstiltskin had such talented, clever hands, such long fingers, and on this evening she appreciated them for so much more than spinning. He turned his hand so that his palm cupped against her mound as his fingers curled into her, and she lifted a hand to clutch at the hair at his nape as he slid them slowly in and out. He stroked her in that way until she thought she might pull the handful of hair she held right out of his head.

He seemed to know when she was reaching that point; he slipped his fingers from her, giving her a smile as he moved away a bit. Pushing the soft fabric of her shift up around her waist, he lay down on his stomach between her legs, nudging his shoulders up against the backs of her thighs.

“Oh, gods, Rumpel-” she managed just before she felt his tongue swipe up the length of her sex. Her head fell back against the sheepskin, out of reach of the pillows that were somewhere behind her. 

He licked at her, alternating broad sweeps of his tongue with deeper licks into her, pulling back every few moments to curl his tongue high into the top of her cleft. It sent her head spinning, making her hips tilt toward his movements.

“Rumpel!” She finally patted at his head to get his attention before she went utterly mad. He took his mouth from her, blinking up at her face. Belle beckoned at him with both hands, the motion as clumsy as it was urgent. “Up here. Now. _Please.”_

As he knelt up, Belle quickly pulled her shift off over her head and dropped it next to their pallet, shifting so that she lay nearer the center. She caught one hand around his upper arm and the other at his neck, pulling him down. When he resisted her, she was brought up a bit short.

“It won’t hurt you? With-?” He gestured to her stomach.

She shook her head, smiling at his concern, and urged him closer. “It won’t hurt either of us,” she assured him. “Please, come here?”

He let her pull him down, and he rested on his forearms above her, his hands turned so that they splayed over her shoulderblades. She grinned up at him and wiggled, fitting their hips together until he could feel the heat of her against him. His breath left him in a needy sigh as Belle steepled her legs. 

She moved her hand from his neck to reach between them, and he felt her fingers graze gently against the underside of him when she lifted and positioned him at her entrance. He slipped inside, making himself go slowly out of worry. They’d only been together once, and more than two months before, at that. He felt her hand slide from between them, stroking across his hipbone and up his side, over his shoulder, returning to clutch at the back of his neck. The way she held onto him sent a bolt of need through him. His hips shuddered in a thrust that he tried to hold back.

“There,” Belle gasped, raising her hips to meet him. “Right there, Rumpel. There, please, there…”

The vocabulary that usually came with court-practiced ease to her lips escaped her, devolving into repetition and pleading as his movements hit the most delightfully sensitive spots. It still felt strange to have him inside her - wonderful and right, as if he were a part of her that had been missing all this time, but still overwhelming and stretching and strange.

He bowed his head to rest their foreheads together, and she felt the warm puffs of their breath reflecting off one another. Rumpel angled his hips back, pulling away a little, and slid back into her. It took them a few minutes to get past the sensations of first joining, but together they fell into a blessedly even rhythm. 

Rumpel made a strangled sound, and she petted the back of his neck. His thrusts grew uneven, but not even that could stop her finishing when she neared that edge. She knew it when he came, his hips snapping harder into her, his body going tense, and the intensity of his response sent her over after him.

She felt him choke back a groan, but her own sound wasn’t so easily quieted. Belle cried out, her body pushing up against him and her legs squeezing around him, as if the very core of her being demanded him even closer in that moment.

They lay together, breath lost and hearts pounding, until she felt him soften within her. He moved carefully off her to lie beside her and she nudged him onto his back so that she could curl up against him.

Lying there in one another’s arms, they could hear people still outside over the crackling of the fire. Laughter and children squealing as they played, the odd bark from someone’s dog here and there.

“You know,” Belle said once she’d caught her breath, smiling and rubbing her nose against his shoulder. “I don’t believe that’s entirely about us anymore.”

Rumpel hummed softly, leaning his head to touch hers. “Well, you know village folk. Any excuse for food and drink and a fire. Particularly in winter. It gets a bit bleak here.”

“Then we’ve given them an excuse, at least.” She nuzzled her face up against him. There would be nothing bleak in this house on this winter. She hoped to make certain of it. “I’m glad we had a winter wedding, now. I can’t imagine it being any different.”

“It _was_ lovely. I swear I even caught your father smiling once or twice.” Rumpel looked askance at her as he teased. “Though, it might have been that strong mead that was going around.”

Belle laughed. “It was perfect,” she said, tilting her face up to kiss the underside of his jaw. She slid her hand across his chest and pressed herself against his side. “The entire day has been.”

He gave her a bashful, crooked smile. “The entire day?”

“The _entire_ day.” She nodded, shifting back and raising up on her elbow so that she could roll on top of him. “And it isn’t over yet.”

~o~o~o~

They were awakened by a knock at the door. Belle grabbed her shift and threw it on while Rumpel cast frantically around for his tunic. She wrapped her cloak close around her and hurried barefoot across the cold hardpack floor to see who was interrupting the bare day and a half of honeymoon they were allowing themselves.

Magda was already across the road by the time she pulled the door ajar to peek through. The other woman gestured downward, and Belle looked to find a covered basket on the doorstep. They exchanged a smile and Magda waved as she took the basket inside with her. 

When Belle went back to the fire, she found Rumpel pulling on the nightshirt he’d left draped over the foot of the bed the previous morning, his hair very nearly on end as he yanked the collar over his head.

“Who is it?” he asked, still sleep addled.

She waved him back down to the sheepskins and dropped her cloak onto the bed. “Breakfast,” she said, grinning at him.

Belle plopped cheerfully onto the floor next to him and took the cloth from the top of the basket. There was bread and honey, dried meat and dried fruit, and a small bottle of fresh cream, heavy and thick. A stack of fresh flatcakes, made cold by the trip between houses, were wrapped in a napkin of their own. She opened the napkin and set them to warm by the fire.

They devoured most of the basket, ending the meal by eating cream and honey from one another’s fingers, and smiling giddily as they did. Belle repeated their vow. “Honey will taste the sweeter from my fingers,” she said, beaming at him.

“It does, indeed,” Rumpel agreed, taking her hand as she offered it and sucking sweetness from her fingertips. 

Honey dripped onto his chin and she leaned forward to give it a lick before he could wipe it away. She caught his lower lip between her own and licked across it.

“Everything about you tastes sweet,” he told her, and she found her cheeks - as well as other parts of her - heating in response.

She put the bits of food left over back into the basket for later, then got to her feet. “I have an idea,” she said, taking his hand and tugging at his arm until he took his staff from next to the hearth and stood with her.

Belle towed him the few feet to the spinning wheels and brought his stool over to rest behind the one she used, then urged him to sit down. She stepped in and sat down on her own, placing herself between his legs and indulging in something she’d fantasized about a hundred times over when they were no more than spinner and apprentice, not realizing how often he’d thought of it, as well.

Wrapping his arms around her, Rumpel rested his chin on her shoulder and smiled. “You want to spin?” he asked. “Now?”

“I want _us_ to spin. To begin with,” Belle said, turning her head to press a playful kiss to his cheek.

She took the strand she’d last worked on and he reached out to start the wheel going for her before he covered her hands with his own. He guided her fingers, making a game of spinning the thread as slender as he could without it breaking. He brushed kisses against the side of her neck, enjoying her gasps and the tension passing through her small frame as he took the thread to the edge of pulling its fibers apart.

Belle leaned back against him, trusting him not to break the strand even as she wondered at how thin it became. She could feel his heart thump at her back, his warm breath on her neck, feel him growing hard against her backside. It didn’t take long for her to become so wet that she could hardly stand it.

She stopped the wheel and took the thread and roving away from him, placing it on top of the bobbin, and moved only enough that she could turn to face him. She tugged his nightshirt up to expose him and pulled up her shift. With his hands on her shoulders and his on her hips making her sure of her balance, she positioned herself astride his thighs.

“About that ‘anywhere you want’ we discussed,” she said, slipping one hand down to hold him at the right angle as she lowered herself slowly, nestling them together.

She heard the whimper he bit back. Belle felt him twitch inside her as she settled on his lap, and her body answered with a fluttering squeeze around him.

“Anything you want,” he whispered, burying his face in her neck and groaning helplessly as she rocked her hips against him. “Anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to include the meanings for the flowers in their wreaths at the end of the previous chapter, and in my hurry to get it posted I forgot.  
> [Daphne flowers](https://67.media.tumblr.com/0e4efde76112b43647703848ae0a8bfe/tumblr_ofjjixxvez1sn4l8ho1_250.jpg) mean sweetness, honesty, and the blessings of a newborn baby.  
> [Snow roses](https://66.media.tumblr.com/af3e9a9b237431893e97c396a90d648c/tumblr_ofjjixxvez1sn4l8ho2_500.jpg) (hellebore) mean an end to melancholy.


	5. Chapter 5

By the end of winter the lambs they’d kept inside were strong enough to go into the paddock with the rest. It turned out they had all gotten rather accustomed to having small creatures bumble around the room, and they missed the lambs’ presence dreadfully. It became an unsaid necessity that they acquire a puppy of some sort just as soon as they could afford to feed one.

Belle insisted on helping during lambing season, and the same happened when shearing time came around. She _did_ have to learn, she justified, and it took very little convincing for Rumpel to agree. There was a definite learning curve when it came to shearing a sheep, she discovered. Rumpel did an admirable job of keeping a straight face as he guided her along, but Bae downright giggled. 

The time at last came for her to learn to dye their spinnings. She’d looked forward to it for a full year, and when Rumpel dragged out the branches of the drying frame that leaned disassembled in a corner of the house, she couldn’t help being a bit excited. 

She watched as he built a fire next to the house with a smaller frame above it meant to suspend pots over the flames. There were two pots, meaning that he could dye only two colors at once. It was the way he’d always done things, he said. They hadn’t the means to do more than that at a go.

“Rumpel…” she said as he poured water from a bucket into one of the pots. “I can help with this.”

“No, no, you’re not to carry heavy things,” he said. “I’ve fetched buckets of water up from the stream for most of my life. It’ll not hurt me to keep on.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” She smiled fondly at him. He might actually have remembered the midwife’s instructions better than she did.

He looked up at her curiously. “What do you mean to ‘help with,’ then?”

“We need more pots for dyeing. I have a good amount saved that I meant to buy a wheel with-”

“That’s for your spinning wheel,” he said, frowning a bit. “I won’t take that from you.”

She reached down to run her fingers through the back of his hair. “We don’t need it, though. We’ve two, and they’re both perfectly serviceable, are they not? Do they need repairs in any way?”

He shook his head, listening. 

“Then I don’t _need_ a new spinning wheel. That plan was before us.” Belle squatted down next to him, balancing herself with an arm leaned on his thigh. “I can buy a couple more pots, the supplies for two more colors. Don’t you think we might make it all back within two or three market days?”

“Likely,” he said, considering it. After a few moments, he nodded his agreement.

On the next market day, she did just that. When Magda came by their stall, Belle asked her to watch over it while they ran their errand. Rumpel carried one iron pot and she carried the other on their way to the dye master for another pair of colors. In addition to the snakeweed and madder root they already had at home for the bright, golden yellow and scarlet red they’d been dyeing, she chose a package of extracted woad, already prepared for dyeing blues, and a fruit tree bark that promised a lovely grass green. 

It surprised her how expensive the blue dye was, and her thoughts went back to her wedding dress. She looked to Rumple and went up on her toes to press a warm kiss to his cheek as the dye master fetched another dose of mordant to fix their colors.

They passed the woodworker’s stall on the way back to their own, and Belle spotted something that made her stop. A set of tall, polished sticks leaned next to the spinning wheels.

“What are these?” she asked, veering over to look at them.

The man dusted his hands on his trousers. “Your husband there ought to know. The spinner, ain’t he?”

Belle narrowed her eyes at the man’s tone, and she turned to Rumpel.

“Distaffs,” Rumpel said. He reached to touch one of the sleek sticks. “They’re quicker to spin from. You wrap the wool - or flax, or whathaveyou to spin up - about the top, and the distaff holds a great mass of it to feed in rather than holding a bit in hand at a time.”

She stepped closer, taking one from where it leaned and looking at it. It would take every bit of the rest of her savings, but if anything was worth it, this would be. Leaning the distaff back in its spot, she turned to her husband.

“Since it’s quicker, mightn’t that mean we would have a little more time for ourselves, instead of spending _every_ spare second working?” she asked, a smile curling at her lips.

Belle tugged him close, wrapping her arms around him and clasping her hands together at his back. He could feel the new firmness of her gently rounding belly against his own stomach. It sent a happy thrill through the middle of him. 

“It might, at that,” he said.

“You know how to spin from a distaff?” Belle asked, tipping her face up to him.

“I do.”

“Then you can teach me, as well. We’ll spin all the faster and all the more.”

She bounced a little on her toes, and he recognized the motion for a request of a kiss. He ducked his head for her and received a kiss with a smacking sound behind it that made the woodworker scowl. He had a feeling that it was on purpose, on Belle’s part. She bought two of the distaffs, running her hands over every one of them until she decided which two she wanted. Her purse was nearly emptied, but it _would_ be worth it. She knew it would.

Rumpel carried one and she carried the other. They made their way back talking happily about what they would do over the next week - dyeing and winding skeins and packing for the next market day. They stopped at the stall next to their own, having a look at sets of hand-carved knitting needles and discussing what would be appropriate for her first pair perhaps next week. She leaned the distaff she carried against the table and absently stroked a hand across her abdomen as they looked.

“You sure _this_ one’s yours?” sneered a familiar voice as they approached their own stall again. 

Belle turned to look, and she found the same two soldiers she’d had to stand by and listen to once before as they’d disparaged and humiliated the man who was now her husband. A part of her wanted to take the distaff she carried and conk them both solidly over the heads with it. 

“Can’t imagine he could do what it took to get her in such condition,” the thin man said, reaching up to rub at his shaven head.

“Ignore them,” Belle whispered to Rumpel as they stepped around the table and into their stall. “They’re not worth listening to. Not worth getting hurt over, either.”

Magda frowned, and hearing the nasty jibes, she stayed with them.

“Neh, doubtful,” the taller, heavily bearded one agreed with him. “Still ain’t got his stick wet. Can’t get it up high enough!”

Both laughed and the smaller of the two cast a smirking look directly at them. “‘Least this one’ll have something in common with the other.”

The burly soldier stuck out his stomach, patting at it. “Well, when all you can manage is taking care of others’ bastards, you have to take what you can get.”

When they at last had their fill of ridicule, they left. Rumpel stood near the back of the stall, fussing with a skein of yarn. Belle placed herself next to him, leaning into his side. 

“You are worth a hundred of them,” she told him softly, though she knew she couldn’t take away what they’d both heard. “A thousand. A hundred thousand.”

Setting her hands on his shoulders to help herself rise up, she kissed him. She pressed kisses to his cheek, scattering them like flowers that wished could choke out the weeds of the cruelties he’d had to hear over the course of his life. 

He turned to face her and she began dropping kisses on his lips, going on until he put his arms around her and kissed her back. 

For nearly the full week between market days, they dyed their spinnings. It was hard work, and hot besides, standing by the fire and prodding the yarn, checking constantly for color, squeezing hot water from the yarn and carrying it at the end of the stirring stick to hang over the drying frame. Both of them were exhausted by the time dyeing was done, but they’d a mountain of yarn to untangle and twist.

They ended up taking a rainbow of colors - yarn dyed in varying intensities and shades, owing to timing and the experimental mixing of pots when they neared the end of the week - with them to market. Rumpel carried the tall basket that he’d always taken his spinning to market in, and Belle and Bae brought along still more. Their table ran over full of the beautiful twists of yarn, and it seemed to draw more interest than even Rumpel’s reputation could dispel.

When they left the marketplace, it was with a far lighter burden than the trip out. After supper, Rumpel sat and counted the coins with Belle standing behind him, her arms draped around his neck, and tears sprang to his eyes as he discovered they had passed and doubled their work’s usual earnings.

~o~o~o~

The baby began showing through Belle’s clothing as summer rolled through the village. She took to wearing looser dresses, reveling over how Rumpel couldn’t keep his hands off of her. 

It was when she truly began rounding out that they told Bae that he was going to be a big brother. After telling him, he took every opportunity to pat or talk to her belly, ‘showing’ the baby inside the toys that he would share with it and telling it garbled versions of the stories that his Papa told him at bedtime. It depended on the day whether he addressed Belle’s belly as ‘little brother’ or ‘little sister,’ but he said both with equal affection. 

Leaves were falling in swaths and animals had begun foraging for meaner months when Belle rounded to the point that she began to waddle. They began making walks over the past couple of months, the three of them, back and forth to the midwife’s cottage at the edge of the village. Sometimes it was so that the elderly little woman could look in on how Belle and the baby were progressing, but most of their walks were to get Bae accustomed to the path. There was no chance that Rumpel could get there quickly enough when Belle’s labor began, and Bae might be the only messenger they had when the time came. 

Their anxious waiting grew more anxious as time grew closer, as Belle’s belly grew full and round, as her feet and legs and back hurt, as she began to exhaust herself with almost anything at all. Rumpel worried and watched her like a hawk, trying to discern any signs that might mean she or the baby were in distress. 

It was in the dead of night just a day before the equinox that Belle shook him awake.

“Rumpel? Wake up, Rumpel, I think my waters have broken.”

He sat up and registered the look of shock on her face. Sure enough, her nightdress was wet, and so was the side of his nightshirt where she’d been lying snugged up against him. 

“It’s all right,” he said, sitting up on the side of the bed and helping her to sit up after him. He touched her face, running the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “You’ll be all right, both of you.”

He limped the couple of steps between their bed and Bae’s, shaking the little boy gently. “Bae, waken up, son.”

Bae sat up, his eyes squinting. “Papa?”

“The baby is coming. I need you to-”

“I have to go get the midwife!” Baelfire squeaked, suddenly wide awake. He threw his blanket off, but his father caught him. 

“No, no, it’s too late in the night for you to go so far on your own. What I need you to do is go across to Morraine’s. You tell her mum what’s happening as soon as she opens the door. Can you do that?”

Bae nodded quickly. “Yes, Papa. Tell Morraine’s mum the baby is coming. I can do that.”

“Good boy.” Rumpel sat on the bed and hurried to get his son’s trousers and boots on him. “You tell her and you stay there with Morraine, all right?”

“I don’t get to see the baby?” Bae asked, his face falling.

“You’ll get to see the baby just as soon as possible, but not until it’s arrived.” He pulled Bae’s nightshirt off and replaced it with his tunic, then put his small cloak around him. “Run fast, all right? Be careful, but run fast.”

Bae was off like lightning, pausing only to get the door open. His father watched until a lantern was lit in the window across the way and Magda’s door had opened. Their neighbor scooted Bae inside and disappeared after him long enough to fetch a cloak before leaving her own house and breaking into a run for the village’s edge. 

Rumpel helped his wife clean up, fetched the clean nightdress they knew she might need and helped her to change into it, and put water into the pot over the fire to boil. The midwife came bustling in not twenty minutes after Magda had run for her, and Magda came in right behind her.

Rumpelstiltskin hadn’t been there when Baelfire was born. He’d not seen his son for months afterward. Lambing told him nothing of what to expect or what he should be frightened of, and so he was frightened of every groan and whimper that came from his wife. Every sound of pain sent a stab of worry through him that something was _wrong,_ that she or the baby or both might not make it through. He bit his tongue to keep his worries from casting a shadow over Belle, simply staying with her and giving her his hands and shoulders to lean on when she needed them.

When it was time, when the midwife declared she could see a head of hair, she instructed Rumpel and Magda to get Belle up out of the bed. They helped her to squat next to the bed, supporting her weight so that all she had to think about was the baby and pushing, and she waded her way through contraction after contraction, her body being tried until she thought she would never do more than hurt and tremble again.

Belle delivered the baby into the midwife’s hands with a cry of triumph, laughing as the baby squalled out with what were quite apparently powerful lungs and voice. She looked to Rumpel and found him sobbing, looking from her to the baby and back again with awe breaking his face wide open.

She finished labor, the parts few women were told of before going through it, and they got her cleaned up and back into bed. She was sore, every part of her, but her daughter was crying, breathing, and _happy_ couldn’t begin to touch how she felt. The midwife put the baby to Belle’s breast, showing her how to get a proper latch, and the little girl nursed right away.

“She’s a hungry one,” the midwife said with a chuckle. “Some of them refuse to eat for a day or two. But she’s hungry right off. A good auspice, that.”

The baby was eight hours old when Bae came running home, taking off as soon as Morraine’s mother told him that he was expected. He crawled carefully onto the bed to kneel next to them, giving delicate, feathery touches to the soft, ash brown frizz on the baby’s head. She was still pink and wrinkled, but her eyes were wide and curious in the lantern light. 

“Hi,” Bae said, watching the way her hair brushed beneath his fingers. He could barely feel it, it was so soft. “I’m your big brother.” He looked up at Belle. “Is baby a boy or girl?”

“She’s a little girl,” Belle told him, reaching out to wrap her arm around him and snuggle him into her side. “You have a little sister.”

“Hi, little sister,” Bae whispered.

Belle smiled at Rumpel and wiggled her foot where he rested a hand on it over the blanket. “Her name is Noemi.”

“Noemi,” Baelfire pronounced carefully. He leaned over, brushing a kiss against the baby’s cheek. “I’ll share my Mum and Papa with you. Just make sure you remember to share back with me.”

Rumpel snorted a soft laugh, and Belle bumped her foot against his hand. “Come here,” she said, beckoning the hand that held Bae against her side.

He hesitated. “I don’t want to h-”

“You are _not_ going to hurt me,” she told him, giving him another bump with her foot. “Lying next to me isn’t going to hurt me in the least. Come here.”

He stood and moved down to sit next to her, bringing his legs up so that he could join his family. Lifting Bae onto his lap, he shifted that bit closer and slipped his arm around Belle. She leaned against him, closing her eyes. It was a tight fit, but they managed.

A new bed, he decided. Their next bit of savings would be toward a new bed. One big enough for them all.


End file.
